


Paradise I Held Onto

by ohitsbo



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, But it's okay because it's Relatable, Established Relationship, Future Fic, If that clears it up, M/M, Oikawa Tooru Being an Asshole, There's symbolism in there but it's hard to spot this time, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 15:43:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11316498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohitsbo/pseuds/ohitsbo
Summary: Tooru can't sit still and Hajime swears he's tired of running.





	Paradise I Held Onto

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from The Other Side of Paradise by Glass Animals, which works loosely with this piece.

“I knew it.”

Oikawa let an anxious grin spill onto his face, “Knew what, Iwa-chan?”

“I knew you were hiding something. I even asked you, but you said nothing. And then you pull this shit… Why didn’t you just talk to me, Tooru?”

“I’m talking to you now!” Iwaizumi’s mouth snapped shut.

Oikawa set his fork down. He was excited for tonight, so excited that he set up their dinner outside and everything, on the old wire table and chairs that wobbled every time you put pressure on them and the flowers he’d gotten from the supermarket that morning. What a waste.

“I know this is a lot.”

Oikawa couldn’t read his face. Iwaizumi had hung his head, picking at the food on his neglected plate. The sun had set already, night settling into its bed for the night, wind lulling it to sleep, the sky a blue blanket.

“It’s a lot for me too.”

The chicken was good. A few hours ago, Oikawa had his arms around Iwaizumi’s waist, trying to distract him from the meal he was cooking. It was like any other night, and it would have been if not for the date, marked down on their calendar in red ink. Seven years had never felt so long.

“I’ll be okay, though.”

Oikawa’s chest was too tight. The warm air felt like it was suffocating him and the idea of eating made him tense up. He shouldn’t have brought it up. Not tonight.

“I’ve got money-”

“We’ve got money,” Iwaizumi’s voice cut through his earlier patience, his inflection rough at its edges, like a dull knife through chocolate cake. The darkness hummed around them, and they both took refuge in it, focused on all of the croaks and creaks of summer nights. A warm light pulsed from a few feet away. The backyard was just quiet enough so that they could hear each other’s silence.

“Tooru, I wish I was the kind of guy who could let you do this, but I’m not. You can’t expect me to- I’m selfish, and I can’t let you run off.” He exhaled, and his grip on the table relaxed.

“You’re not selfish,” Oikawa whispered.

They let this hang for a moment.

Iwaizumi scoffed and kept his head low, staring at the food growing cold on his plate.

“Why can’t you just realize that everything that was once yours is ours now. I’m not gonna let you abandon ship again. It took me forever to find you last time, and I’m tired, and I just want to sit back and be with you. I just want to be happy.”

Oikawa smiled sadly, “You did find me last time, didn’t you?”

“Had to drop everything to do it, but yes, I did. And I’ll do it again if I have to but, please, please don’t make me.”

Oikawa leaned back in his seat and let it dig into his back. He looked down at Iwaizumi from the frame of his nose. A breeze shuddered through him.

“I’m leaving on the sixth.”

Iwaizumi trembled.

“I got a ride to the train station, so you don’t have to offer a ride. I’ll be out of your hair in no time. Just a couple of days. Don’t think about it too much. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed. I’ll take your plate in.”

Oikawa stood up, his chair screeching across the ground, and reached over to pile Iwaizumi’s plate on top of his. He straightened his back and carried them inside, feeling Iwaizumi’s glare on his back, cutting it off with a slamming screen door.

When he woke up the next morning, it wasn’t to a warm chest against his back. He woke up to nothing. Morning light pouring from the blinds and across his comforter. He laid in bed for the day watching it grow into daylight and then into darkness. You could say he lost track of time.

Before he knew it, though, he heard the door creak open and a figure slip through. He felt a body against his. He felt arms around his waist. He felt a voice near his ear.

“No matter how far you run, or how many times, I’ll pack my bags and run to meet you. I know you feel trapped in your life sometimes, but mine would mean nothing without you. So please, let me be selfish. Please let me have you. That’s all I ask for.”

Oikawa didn’t sleep that night.

Instead, he took solace in the body heat. Instead, he spent the night thinking. Instead, he grew.

When he got up the next morning, it was as if nothing had changed since before the night he told Iwaizumi he was going to run away for a second time. They shifted around each other in their lives, working like well-oiled gears. They loved and they ate and they laughed like old times, like the childhood friends they’d always be. Days passed like the tide, waves drifting onto shore and then retreating back again into sleep. Before they knew it, another month had come.

The night of the fifth, Iwaizumi tried not to cry. Instead, he busied himself through cleaning up the house and kissing Oikawa, both of his favorite things. He made agedashi tofu for dinner and milk bread for dessert. Oikawa set up the table outside and they ate in roundabout chatter, always nearly missing the one thing they were dying to talk about. Instead, they ate and made fun of each other, both of Oikawa’s favorite things. After dinner, they helped each other do dishes. Iwaizumi did the washing. Oikawa did the drying. The kitchen light flickered above them, a moth bouncing around it.

They went to sleep without saying a word.

  
  


Iwaizumi woke up the next morning to an empty bed.

He looked at his hands, looked at the disturbed sheets, looked at the spot where the picture of him and Oikawa should be.

He smiled.

His throat stung.

The clock read eight. He decided he better get dressed and out of bed.

The kitchen felt static as he walked through and opened up the fridge, grabbing the iced tea and the leftovers from last night. He warmed up his food and ate it leaning against the beige countertops, giving special attention to the ugly wallpaper Oikawa insisted that they keep after buying the house. It really was ugly, yellow with pink butterflies and caterpillars on a border near the top. Something you’d find in a poor kid’s bedroom. Something you’d wanna rip out straight away to protect your own pride. But Oikawa had wanted it, something about its charm. Iwaizumi laughed to himself, scraping together the last bite of tofu. Oikawa had an awful sense of style.

And for some reason, Iwaizumi had to stop himself from crying again.

Isn’t that stupid, he thought to himself. Crying about the idiot already.

He hasn’t even been gone a day yet.

Iwaizumi picked himself up and carried himself to the front of the house, maybe to get the mail, he didn’t even know if it’d been delivered yet. It was better just to keep himself moving. He reached the door, but let his hand hang from the door knob. There was a white letter on the wood table next to the coat rack, and his name, printed in deliberate handwriting on the front.

He peeled the envelope open.

Inside, he found a train ticket in his name. To Osaka.

There was a piece of paper too. It smelled like cheap cologne and the handwriting matched with what was on the envelope, albeit a bit messier. When he read it, he grinned, then laughed, then cursed. He ran to his room, grabbing his big leather bag from the closet and stuffing his best clothes inside. He grabbed his favorite shirts. He grabbed the jeans Oikawa said made him look best. He grabbed his computer. He grabbed his phone. He grabbed his chargers. He grabbed the photo albums full of pictures from his childhood, from high school, from volleyball, from just before Oikawa left the first time, the photos he’d obsessed over for months after he’d found him. He grabbed his toothbrush and the rest of the essentials, the valuables, and the savings. He grabbed everything he’d ever need in the future and nothing more. Finally, he grabbed the picture he had of him and Oikawa when they were younger, arms across each other’s shoulders and toothless smiles. He took the picture out of its frame and folded it together. Put it his wallet.

He smiled at the wallpaper. He hoped that its next owner would burn it.

He said goodbye to the old tables and chairs in the back.

He said goodbye to the flickering kitchen light.

And maybe this was the time when he should have taken a deep breath and reconsidered, thought through the logistics, and calmed down. Maybe he should have brought himself back to earth and thought through this with reason, figured out a slower but more responsible way. Stuck true to what he was known for. Been the mature one. But that was the thing-- Iwaizumi didn’t care, about the expenses, about the repercussions, none of it. All he wanted was to see Oikawa again. All he cared about was Oikawa.

So like hell he was gonna let him get away.

He checked his watch. He still had time to catch the train, if he hurried. It would be tight but nothing he had never done before. He shuffled on a coat and grabbed his bad, heaving it over his shoulder. He turned off all the lights in the house and turned off the air conditioning.

The front door swung open and Iwaizumi slammed it closed behind him.

He had left the paper facing up on the table where he’d found it.

 

 

_ Come and get me. -T _

  
  
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> Okay in my defense, it's late and I got inspired to finally write, so here you go, more angst.  
> I don't know why I keep writing fics about the characters I relate to running away from their problems, but here we are.  
> Hope you enjoyed! Please leave comments, I know this fic isn't great but I'd love to learn what I can do to make it better!  
> Thank you! ♡


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